


The Utility of Hair Ties

by colorofmercury



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:08:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorofmercury/pseuds/colorofmercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equius has some trouble with his hair. Nepeta has some trouble with her moirail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Utility of Hair Ties

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this two months ago and never posted it here what the actual fuck.

You’ve smashed your last robot and emerged victorious.

This would be fantastic if when you broke it it hadn’t somehow caught your hair.

Nepeta has long since started to ignore the racket whenever she visits, but when you can’t get your hair out of the stupid useless pile of metal you eventually get frustrated and yell at it. You also kick it. This launches it several feet forward and pulls you with it. This was perhaps not the wisest decision you have ever made.

The yelling might have gotten her attention. Perhaps it was paired with the considerable amount of (relative) silence before you did that, but regardless out of the corner of her eye you see her cautiously edging further in the door so she can see. _You’re_ certainly not going to hurt her, but she has been nickered—NICKED, you mean nicked, by more than one piece of flying debris. You don’t blame her for her uncertainty.

When Nepeta has realized she’s not in any immediate danger, she walks in. You were certain she would have started laughing by now—you must look absolutely ludicrous, bent at a 90 degree angle with your arms crossed under you and your hair a twisted mess, pulling you down. But she doesn’t laugh. She is smiling, when she bends down to meet your eye, but for once in all her five sweeps of life she does not humiliate you any more than necessary.

“Are you stuck? Hehe.”

That is not to say she abstains completely from mocking you.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” she says when you frown at her. “Shush. I’ll get you out of here.”

“Just don’t—”

“I’m not going to cut your hair, Equius, settle down.” She pats your face and you settle down. Begrudgingly.

She knows very little about mechanics. You have taught her some, but she doesn’t think the way you do and you get frustrated trying to explain when she doesn’t understand. Most of what she has learned she has simply picked up by watching you. Although you would very much like for her to learn more, you absolutely deplore being watched, and it becomes a bit of a problem.

It is becoming more of a problem now when she is giving the robot a very puzzled look and warily poking at it.

“Are you stuck,” you say, flatly, and she sticks her tongue out at you.

“Don’t be a jerk. Come closer, your hair’s too taut for me to untangle it.”

It takes her a very long time to untangle. She frequently gets frustrated with it, she frequently yanks at your hair and does not apologize when you express your pain, she frequently tells you to bend something out of the way because otherwise she’s not getting your hair out. She frequently threatens to cut it off when you don’t cooperate.

By the time she’s finally finished you have lost quite a few hairs, and what’s left on your head is still appallingly knotted, but at least it isn’t significantly shorter.

Nepeta takes you to the living room and asks Aurthour to make food for both of you. She sits you on the couch, retrieves a brush, turns you to sit sideways, and deposits herself behind you, all before you really have the chance to react. “This might take a while,” she says, but frankly you are too flustered to complain. It’s not as though she has never brushed your hair before, but it’s still. Well. Intimate.

“Does this happen a lot?” she asks, taking a section of hair and gently starting to work at the ends.  


“… No,” you tell her. This is mostly the truth.

“You know, this on top of having to brush it out every morning, on TOP of having to clean it, and on TOP TOP of all the times you get the ends dirty in something or it blows in your face, it’s kiiiiind of starting to sound like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.” She makes it sound like this is the first time she has broached the subject, like it’s been on her mind but she never wanted to say anything, but she has made this argument many times before. “You should just have it short like mine! Way less time in the shower, too.”

“No.”

“Come onnnnnn,” she whines, dropping her hands into her lap and abandoning your hair. “Stupid stuff like this keeps happening and I’m not always going to be nearby to help!” You cross your arms. “ _Equius_ …” She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Come here.” 

The next time she runs the brush through your hair she is considerably less gentle.

“ _Ow_ —Nepeta, _please_ refrain from taking out your frustration on my hair.”

She grumbles something that starts with “why not” and includes a phrase suspiciously close to “your dumb head” and you are beginning to get very cross with her.

“Leijon.” You say this in your Angry Voice. It is not yet quite as intimidating as you would like it to be, but regardless she ceases her mumbling.

She also ceases her brushing. There is a long pause and you are about to ask what’s wrong when she seems to collapse a little, depositing her cheek a little roughly on your back.

What she says next is quiet enough that you have to stop breathing to hear her properly.

“My name’s Nepeta.”

Your heart sinks a little. She told you not to call her that. She told you she doesn’t like hearing you say her name like that. She told you it hurts.

You did it anyway.

“… Nepeta,” you correct yourself, belatedly. “… I’m sorry.”

There is another very long pause and you begin to worry again.

Then she hits you.

It’s not very hard, but it’s a solid enough punch to the shoulder blade to get the point across.

“You’re a huge—” you give her a look over your shoulder before she finishes that sentence. “… jerk. You’re lucky you have me around to keep you from being a jerk to everyone else.”

“I am,” you say, and you feel her whole posture change as she smiles. “And you are lucky that you have me around to keep everyone else from being a jerk to you.”

“Mhmm,” she says, cheerily, and gives your back something like a rough nuzzle or an affectionate headbutt, and you find you are more relieved that she is happy again than you expected to be.

You begin to get a little frustrated again fifteen minutes later, when Nepeta’s insistence on imitating her lusus and similar mammals comes into play and she decides it is time for one of her sporadic and myriad naps throughout the day. Although you try to resist she somehow manages to fall asleep on your chest, and you lie trapped under her, your hair still not brushed completely, staring at the ceiling and feeling a very confusing mix of exasperation and fondness.

The sound of your lusus’ hooves and the quiet clattering of dishes on a tray slowly gets louder before stopping suddenly when he must be at about the threshold of the room. A moment later you hear the unmistakable sound of Aurhour slowly backing into the kitchen again.

You would commend him for trying but you are currently occupied.

You are trying very hard to be annoyed about this.

So far you are having no such luck.


End file.
